Words from the pulpit of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches, and other significant messages.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Roll That Rock Away

I envy Christian ministers this time of year. When
Easter rolls around they can turn to the liturgical calendar and hit upon
dozens of messages and images related to Jesus’ resurrection to use for Easter
Sunday sermon material.

Then there is the Unitarian Universalist minister.
Our tradition doesn’t have a liturgical calendar to consult and how does one
reach such a theologically diverse congregation with a single message?What about a resurrection message?After all it is Easter -- a memorial of the
resurrection since ancient times. For the past ten years I’ve reached deep to
bring Unitarian Universalists a meaningful message on Easter, being careful to
massage our theological sensitivities and our understanding, and sometimes, our
rejection oftraditional resurrection
stories. I could tell you of the pagan roots of Easter that lie in celebrating
the spring equinox, for millennia an important holiday in many religions. The
spring equinox is the end of winter and beginning of spring. Biologically and
culturally, it represents for northern climates the end of a “dead” season and
the rebirth of life or a resurrection. I could offer an Easter message claiming
the importance of fertility and rebirth. All around the country this morning
Unitarian Universalists are hearing stories of spring, sprouting flowers, and
the symbolism of the egg. I’m not discounting these stories. It’s just that as
a UU minister Easter is tricky.

I find the variety of stories and interpretations
of Jesus’ resurrection intriguing and sometimes comical. Take, for example the
story of one young Unitarian Universalist. His Sunday school teacher was
teaching a lesson about Easter and asked her class: “Who knows the story of
Easter?” The boy jumped up and down waving his hand as he knew he had the
answer. The teacher called on him and he replied:“Easter is the holiday where Jesus comes out
of his cave and if he sees his shadow we will have six more weeks of winter.”

I like this story. It’s a bit misguided but
downright funny! It reminds me that each of us has our own resurrection story
and more importantly each of us have an opportunity for resurrection, rolling
away the rocks that block our healing and wholeness and allowing the warmth and
a sudden leap of understanding to happen. The rock is the obstacle between us
and spiritual vision.You may share the
Christian belief that Jesus died and was resurrected or you may simply see this
as one of many stories.No matter what
we believe the proof of victory over death is visible and unavoidable. This
season of rolling the rock away and “rising again” allows us to witness the
miracles that are around us. The image of "rolling the rock away"
represents the undoing of the deceptive obstacles that seem to stand between
ourselves and our personal freedom. We undo these obstacles by recognizing that
they are real and devastating. Rolling away the rocks that seem to seal us in a
dark tomb reveals the life and love that lies beyond us. You know, all of us
have rocks that block us from getting where we hope or want. Rocks of fear or
pride or lack of confidence. Rocks of arrogance or anger or addiction.
Sometimes it is the very little things in our lives that keep what is best in
us buried in a tomb.

My colleague the Rev. Mallory LaSande tells us “My
life is a series of deaths and rebirths: times when my old life is over and a
new life must begin. And the awesome promise of the Resurrection is that it
will begin again. I’ve talked about a time of great darkness in my life -- a
time when there seemed no future. That was for me a time of hiding among the
dead. I didn’t want to be noticed and I couldn’t ask for help, so I withdrew
from the fullness of life and hid there in the darkness. That wasn’t the only
time I have died and been reborn, but from that time on I have known that
however painful it is to be reborn, I will be.” I’ve been in that place a few
times. I wonder if you have hid in the darkness hiding among the dead.

Imagine that you are trapped in a tomb hewn out of
rock, completely sealed off from contact with anyone or anything. You are
utterly alone. It is pitch black; you cannot see a thing. You hear nothing. The
air is cool and musty, and an odor of decay permeates the place. You realize
that this tomb is your life: a life encased in a separate body cut off from
everyone and everything, beset with problems and pain (think of some specific
problems and pains that you are facing right now), and marching inevitably
toward demise. We are sometimes trapped in the tomb of our lives, and it seems
that there is no way out.We have tried
to escape from this tomb countless times in the past, but failed so utterly
that we gave up in despair long ago.

Now, you see a faint light approaching. The light
grows as it comes nearer until you are at last able to recognize its source.
The light is your resilience held by the love and wisdom of true and inner self
and those around you here today. You’ve struggled to recognize this light, and
in the light, you see your life and your struggle. You see the entrance to the
tomb is sealed by an immense rock of solid, impenetrable rock that has trapped
you in this dark, miserable tomb for years. Self-compassion, the willingness to
be free, have come to help you roll the rock away. You look back and that rock
has disappeared and you are standing in your own light and the light of your
companions.

We only need to look to the writings of our
ancestor Ralph Waldo Emerson to understand the light. Emerson had come from a
long line of clergymen. He entered Harvard when he was 14 and became a minister
at 26. He was a popular sermonizer. But he abandoned the ministry to lecture
and write. He was considered one of America’s foremost orators, and his
journals form one of the world’s great documents of spiritual growth. Emerson
describes this experience, of light, as a state of consciousness, a state
beyond the familiar states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping. That is Transcendental
Consciousness. In that natural state, which he describes as “the simplest form
of human awareness,” the mind has settled inward, beyond all perception,
thought, and feeling. The mind becomes restful yet remains fully awake and
alert. “Whenever a mind is simple,” Emerson says, it “receives a divine
wisdom.” Emerson teaches us to create and to trust the light from within,
relying on our own divinity versus attaching ourselves to a reliance on
external energies.

A lesson of Easter is that we can get up every day
and go about taking care of what is around us and in front of us. Maybe we can
roll those rocks away by caring for what is real. A central teaching of all
religions -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, paganism, Hinduism. Taoism
-- all of them claim that we meet what is sacred when we give ourselves away.
When I think of removing obstacles, rolling the rock away, resurrection, and
living in hope, my mind and heart immediately race to the hymn We Shall Overcome.If we pay close attention to the lyrics of
the hymn we can better understand our ability to recognize, count on, and
experience the hope and trust that radiates from our resilience and our being
connected to one another. It is perhaps most famous for being one anthem of the
American civil rights movement when both blacks and whites endured the bites of
dogs, the lynching of their comrades and loved ones, the burning of their homes
and churches, and the murder of their beloved leaders including our very own
Rev. James Reeb, a UU minister. They lived in a tomb with no light, no
companions, no way out.They endured
because they were able to trust in a turn of events. They trusted that the
place they were in was not their destiny. They were able to transcend their
oppression and move toward freedom using their ability to transform from
within.Oh, deep in my heart I do
believe WE shall overcome some day. WE are not alone. WE shall not walk alone.
WE are not afraid.WE shall overcome
someday. It is clear to us that if we rely on the strength and surety of
ourselves we will rise above and triumph over the gaps in the road and deep
valleys of life’s journey.It is our
understanding of and desire for true resurrectionthat guides us towards trusting in being
better off, healed, and free of fear. Hope.

Don’t be too
sure if you’re struggling with awful certainties of depression or loss or grief
or confusion or broken promises or unfulfilled promise or anything to which we
humans of the flesh are heirs, or even death. Stay willing to be surprised,
open, resilient, responsible (able to respond), supple…like tender green
shoots…stay ready to rub your eyes in disbelief…like poet Archibald MacLeish:

Why it was wonderful! Why, all at once there were leaves,

Leaves at the end of a dry stick, small alive

Leaves out of wood. It was wonderful,

You can’t imagine. They came by the wood path

And the earth loosened, the earth relaxed, there were flowers

Out of the earth! Think of it! And oak trees

Oozing new green at the tips of them and flowers

Squeezed out of clay, soft flowers, limp

Stalks flowering. Well, it was like a dream,

It happened so quickly, all of a sudden it happened.

Miracles abound.

We are at our best when we refuse to build walls of
rock and truly practice self-care and love and care for what is outside
ourselves–our friends and family, our community and our congregation. When the rock
is rolled away -- whatever that rock is -- we are free, positioned to be made
whole. Let us be witness to the miracle of resurrection and create our own
Easter story.

May it be so.

Roll That Rock Away, a sermon by the Rev. CJ McGregor, presented at 1stUUPB, April
20, 2014.